One summer evening after my new self-realization, I remember helping serve dinner and then carrying everyone's dirty dishes away. My sister joked "Ac is being so nice lately. He must have, like, gotten a girl pregnant and is just being super nice before you guys find out about it." My parents laughed while I cringed. I remember thinking, I wish I had feelings like that for a girl. It would be so much better than the feelings I am really experiencing.

In addition to doubting what my attraction to boys meant, I was beginning to feel more distant from my father. Most of the things he seemed to enjoy doing, such as fixing cars, I found no interest in. Instead, I was more likely to play with my sister's dolls or don a dress she gave me to amuse myself. My dad didn't know how to reach me during that time probably because he lacked a father figure in his own life.

To intensify the mental conflict, I began to encounter unanimously negative messages about “the gay people.” Whether in person or online, gossip and slander formed my first impression of my sexuality. Thus, I quickly grew accustomed to disgusted or fearful reactions around the topic.

One evening, my mom called me to my parents' bedroom. As soon as I saw my father's face, I knew I was in trouble. "What is this?" he pointed to his laptop. Logged in to my Gmail, he was browsing through some of my more explicit emails with Mark. I stumbled over my words as guilt swallowed me. I don't recall getting any sort of sex-ed from my parents, but my environment at least taught me not to talk dirty with friends. My father pointed to more emails. Between my apologies and mental gymnastics to try to extricate myself from an incredibly uncomfortable situation, I claimed that it meant nothing and that the emails were just jokes and bad ideas.

I can't recall if my parents were crying, but I know I was. It was emotional, but I didn't try too hard to hold it in since I hoped it would help alleviate my punishment. I left scolding myself for being careless enough to engage in prohibited activities where my parents might see them. I aimed to be more careful next time.

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Very soon, based on some of the things the Bible said about "homosexuals" and the general atmosphere about the topic at school, I began to descend into much self-doubt and mental conflict over the feelings I was having.

My most vivid memory that came to symbolize how the church viewed me took place in seventh grade. One Sabbath I was working in the brand-new audio-visual booth above a church congregation, when prior to his sermon, the pastor announced, "Now, brothers and sisters, I've heard of other churches in California doing some dangerous things that contradict the word of God. You may have heard of churches that accept homosexuals. I just wanted to say that we are not going to allow ourselves to follow in their footsteps! We are God's people. No homosexuals will be accepted in this church!"

The amens resounded. To their credit, I never recall a full "anti-homosexual sermon" from any of the pastors throughout my years at that church. However, the words spoken from the pulpit that morning skewered my heart. I slumped down in my chair in front of several soundboards and trembled. Although the aging congregation appreciated my pastor's promise not to compromise their beliefs and invite "those people" into our church, they failed to realize that I was already there.

By the time I was thirteen, it seemed like the anti-homosexual narrative was everywhere. It is unlikely that something in my environment had drastically changed, but I became hyper-aware of anything that could provide information about the feelings I was experiencing. When my principal discussed with my teacher how he thought that homosexuals were just confused, I started listening. When my teacher theorized, "What they are feeling isn't love. They don't know what love is. I mean, how could they?" the listening stopped. A habit of self-derision and overthinking settled in its place.

The adults in my life seldom offered any type of understanding toward those with whom I shared my feelings as I became a teenager. Because being gay was considered so disgusting in my community, the topic was never discussed in public. This formed a progressively lonelier existence for me as I didn't know of anyone I could relate to. Even worse, I was now involuntarily part of a group of people that many in my community feared or hated.

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Until seventh grade, I still probably could have come to more logical conclusions about myself and my sexuality. Instead, an experience near the end of elementary school embedded fear, hatred, and self-preservation into my understanding of sexuality.

Once I started having significant desires to find others with whom I could relate, I managed to join a dating app through Facebook and control my preferences so that I could message other gay teens. I began to secretly borrow one of my mom's devices during the night to talk to a guy named Tristan, who, of course, assured me that he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I wasn't gullible enough to believe everything he told me, but hearing "I love you more" or "Good morning handsome" was a welcome change from my daily reality where anyone I might have liked had no capacity to like me back. Also, recognizing that I wasn't the only one experiencing attraction to the same gender gave me the necessary space to relax the walls I had built up over the past few years.

Having access to the internet in the middle of the night eventually led to some more Pornhub exploration, but both that and my secret correspondence promptly ended a week or two later when I fell asleep instead of returning the device one night.

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"SMACK!" I woke up on a Wednesday morning while my head was mid-flight between my father's palm and the side of my bunk bed. Another blow hit my face before I realized what was happening. "When you come back from school, I'm going to deal with you." I quickly collected my thoughts as my father's words faded.

During the entire school day and the subsequent extracurricular activities, I found myself worried and racked with nerves. What didn't make sense was that my dad had hit me. Hard. My father had never been physically abusive. I knew it was often a problem in other households, but I believed I was lucky enough to not have to deal with that. This aberration clearly conveyed that he was serious. Every moment of that day was filled with anxiety about what might happen when I saw him again.

At home, instead of helping my mom unload groceries, I was directed to follow my father into the woods behind our home. I was still mentally unprepared to process the situation. Shocked, I took more punches and slaps without resistance.

Soon, he took me to an empty room in our basement and delivered the heartfelt lecture that I had initially expected. I recall how he admitted that sometimes guys "have a lot of testosterone" and they may need to "let it out." However, this (gay sexual activity) was what had disgusted him the most ever since he was a boy. After half an hour, the message I received was clear. Being gay was the most disgusting thing. I felt like I would have rather been in trouble for actually having sex with a girl than for watching gay porn.

"You know that this is the worst thing you could be doing." "Mhmmm." "You want to have a wife and kids someday, right?" "Yeah, sure. " "Mommy and I talked, and we decided that we are going to find professional help for you so you can figure out these confused feelings." "Okay." "And don't tell anyone else about this. Especially don't talk to Grandma and Grandpa about this. I'm not sure if they could take it at their age."

I wasn't used to seeing my father cry, but back then, I thought I understood why this occasion was so significant to him. I tried to imagine what it would be like to realize that my own child embodied what I found the most distasteful. Realistically, his motives were likely more grounded in what he believed was best for me, but what I remembered most was yet another adult's disgust at my sexuality. My father apologized the next day, but I wasn't nearly ready to forgive him. Instead, I mentally followed a path that further isolated me. Because my parents were not native English speakers, I was not accustomed to receiving academic help. This carried over to emotional struggles that were never really discussed at home. Although in time they would have likely listened if I was willing to share, I wasn't about to start opening up when I faced something as scary as having feelings for guys.

Thus, I aimed instead to distance myself from my parents to emotionally protect myself from their reaction to my sexuality. I set out to stop caring about what my parents, especially my father, thought about me. This strategy proved to be almost too successful. I can't say that anything my parents did or said after that made a difference to me regarding my sexuality.

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My parents booked me a weekly meeting with a therapist at a private therapy center in a nearby city. I had read stories online about conversion therapy camps and some of the more conservative Exodus-affiliated ministries and was justifiably horrified when I heard I was going to see a therapist that specialized in cases like mine. Thankfully my experience was nothing like a story out of Boy Erased or Stranger at the Gate. Instead of electric shock therapy or verses from Leviticus in picture frames, I was met with several shelves lined with books about marriage.

I admit that I wasn't an easy 13-year-old to work with, but in my defense, I had my doubts about the bald man with a million questions. One of the success stories he boasted was about a gay man who had come to him six or seven years prior and had finally purged himself of all sexual attractions. Now he wasn't attracted to anyone at all. If that wasn't a worthy goal, what was, right? I silently wished for that but decided not to let it show.

In the first of my few meetings with him, I was informed that I was not actually homosexually oriented, but rather I was going through a phase. I went in and out of therapy every Tuesday with the same thick book on A Godly Marriage and the same determination to quit as soon as I could. I didn't want help from someone who only researched sexuality. I wanted help from someone who could relate to what I was going through, but my therapist admitted he was incapable of that.

Unfortunately, some of my friends in junior high also supported my growing self-hatred. Comments among the pre-teens often attacked any form of same-sex attraction. Many of my friends would cat call each other and slap each other on the crotch. As far as I knew I was the only gay one, but I was also often the only one uncomfortable with that behavior. Very soon, my early introduction to and interest in sexual activity inverted when it was made abundantly clear that attraction to the same gender was just about the dirtiest thing that you could experience.

Since I was being taken out of school every Tuesday for therapy, it took less than a month for my then best friend and first crush in eighth grade, Jack, to figure out what was going on. First, he started theorizing that I was going to get help with some mental health issue, then specifically that it was for sexual orientation therapy. Having someone safe to talk to would have been amazing at this point, but instead, one of my closest friends since kindergarten turned on me.

It began with teasing, lewd jokes, and name calling. Soon, he avoided me altogether. I retaliated by trying to be nice to him every time he reminded me how disgusting I was. Miraculously, this either confused him or wore away his resolve to hate me, because the following school year he stopped bothering me. Sadly, this would not be the only friend I would lose over the issue of my sexuality.

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The message I received from my environment was unanimous. Being attracted to other boys was a sin. Most destructive was the follow-up message: it was worse than any other sin. There were probably church members who would have been caring and non-judgmental if I had come to them, but at this point I was too afraid to tell anyone. I had never heard the topic discussed in a civil manner, and the handful of adults that knew my secret unanimously advised me to bury it as deeply as I could. So, I did.

The problem that most fundamentally scarred me at this age was others' ability to nonchalantly dehumanize queer individuals. The first form of dehumanization was ignorance. Many of the people I knew would rather pretend that I and others in the queer community didn't exist. When sexuality was discussed, most assumed that no one around was gay. Thus, language such as “those people”, “the homosexuals”, and “fags” was often used.

"I just can't stand it when they hold hands in public." "What has our world come to. Now we have to watch our backs, so those homosexual pedophiles don't hurt our kids."

Secondly, the distaste towards homosexuality was extremely widespread. For example, I vividly remember driving through our small, southern town the day after Obergefell v. Hodges was decided. Several church signs proudly advertised sermon titles such as "Two Men? That's Not a Marriage" and "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

All these messages pounding me with shame from many directions caused my understanding of my own sexuality to deteriorate abysmally. My many prayers from that time best describe my feelings. One night, I became especially worried about my increasing interest in boys. I decided to pray for deliverance once again, but instead I found myself pleading for a compromise.

"Dear God, you saw me struggling with my thoughts today. I don't know why, but something is wrong with me. I've tried so hard not to think about guys, but I can't seem to get any better. I know you didn't make heaven for people like me, and I know that I'm not going there, but that's okay. All I ask is that even though I belong in hell, if you could please use me to help get other people to be in heaven, that could make my time worthwhile on Earth. That would make me happy. Amen."